Byron Dorgan

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, let me say that the Senator from South Dakota, Mr. Daschle, has been leading on this issue for some long, long while. Country-of-origin labeling is a requirement under the law. We passed it. It is just that this administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture doesn't want to implement country-of-origin labeling. I held up a beefsteak by consent here on the floor of the Senate about 2 weeks ago, and I asked the question: Can anyone here tell me where this piece of beefsteak came from? Everyone can say where his necktie comes from. That is labeled. Just turn it over. But can anyone tell where a beefsteak comes from? Could it have come from the plant in Mexico where one USDA inspector showed up, and found diseased carcasses hanging, covered with feces, getting ready to be put in the meat supply for human consumption in the United States? Could it be from that plant? After that USDA inspection, that plant changed its name, changed owner, the inspector has never been back, and that plant is certified now to ship into this country. The question was, did that beefsteak come from that plant, a plant from Guatemala, Canada, the United States? Where? No one knows. I ask the Senator from South Dakota, can he tell me which special interest has fought so aggressively, so long, and so hard to try to prevent country-of-origin labeling and prevent consumers and farmers and ranchers from being able to understand where this meat comes from? Who has the administration listened to, in deciding not to implement current law?

Mr. DORGAN. I would be happy to yield.

Mr. DORGAN. If the Senator would allow me to inquire further, the opposition to country-of-origin labeling, as the Senator indicated, comes from the big meat packing plants, the beef packing plants. Eighty percent of the beef packing is controlled by four companies. It is a case of big interests versus the rest. The ranchers of South Dakota and North Dakota produce the best quality beef in the world. We know that. They know that. So the question is, why should the consumers not be able to have access to the information about where this beef comes from at the meat counter when they purchase the meat? Is it South Dakota beef, North Dakota beef, Guatemala beef, or Mexico beef? I will read the specifics regarding the Mexican plant because it is important. I discussed this previously in the Senate. In 1999, in May, one inspector from this country paid a surprise visit to a meat packing plant in Mexico. He found ``shanks and briskets contaminated with feces; disease condemned carcass was observed ready for boning and distribution into commerce.'' Then the Mexican officials took note, went to work to restore that plant's ability to sell meat in America. The Mexican plant regained the export license, it switched owners, it switched its name, and it now sells meat in America. The question is, in South Dakota, when you buy a beefsteak, is it coming from a ranch in South Dakota? The consumers ought to have a right to know and ranchers and farmers want them to have that right. This Congress and this President ought to stand up for the interests of people out there farming and ranching in this country who demand this country-of-origin labeling become law. Senator Daschle has led the fight for some years. I appreciate the fact today you said you will not quit. We will get this done. And whether it is forcing them to see the light or feel the heat, one way or the other, this administration has to stand aside and get out of the way and let us get this done for the American consumer.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, George Tenet gave a speech today at Georgetown that was profoundly disturbing to me and I want to visit about it for a moment. I am not on the Senate Intelligence Committee. I am not someone who claims to have substantial knowledge or detailed knowledge about all of these issues. I spend a great deal of time concerned about economic issues and think I know something about some of those, but I do not pretend to be an expert in foreign policy or intelligence issues. I, as have all of my colleagues, have sat in rooms with a label called ``top secret'' and listened to briefings, top-secret, classified briefings from Mr. Tenet, from the Vice President, from National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, from Secretary Powell, and others. I, like others, have watched what has happened in recent weeks with the testimony from David Kay in which he came to the Senate as a witness and said, look, we got it all wrong. We were all wrong about the intelligence with respect to Iraq. I listened to David Kay describe his assessment of the intelligence system--again, this is the top weapons inspector, appointed by President Bush--and what he said was, this country got it all wrong. Its intelligence service got it all wrong. He said, they failed the President. They did not just fail the President of the United States, if they failed. They failed the President and they failed those in Congress who they looked right in the eye as they gave top-secret briefings to us about their assessment of intelligence. They failed the American people, in my judgment. So this failure was much greater than just a failure to properly inform the President. This country has an enormous stake in making sure we have an intelligence community that works, one we support, and one we are proud of. Why? Someplace this afternoon there are intelligence agents who are pouring over the thinnest of hints about what terrorists might be deciding to do to murder Americans, to attack an American city, to commit a terrorist act against our country, and we must rely on those intelligence agents and the intelligence community to understand it and to get it right, not to exaggerate it, not to misinterpret it, but to understand it and get it right. The safety and security of this country depends on it. None of us wants the intelligence community to be held up in anything other than the highest esteem. I want to be able to say the intelligence community gets it and gets it right. But I cannot do that at the moment. Something is wrong, and we must fix it. When the top weapons inspector comes to the Congress and says, look, the intelligence was all wrong, it failed the President, you don't need much more than that to understand somebody has to be accountable. We have to, posthaste, begin to fix that which failed us. I have not heard of all of Mr. Tenet's presentation; I just heard the highlights a bit ago in which he was defending the CIA. But let me describe one of the reasons I found Mr. Tenet's remarks so distressing. Last evening I happened to be watching something on ``60 Minutes.'' They were interviewing a gentleman named Greg Thielmann. Mr. Thielmann had been in charge of analyzing Iraqi weapons threats for Secretary of State Colin Powell's Intelligence Bureau. He was the one who, after 25 years, became the Acting Director of the Office of Strategic Proliferation and Military Affairs. He was responsible, before he retired, for analyzing the Iraqi weapons threat. He and his staff had the highest security clearances. They saw virtually everything, whether it came in to the CIA or the Defense Department. He was, by all accounts, admired by everyone, and had a long and distinguished career. During the ``60 Minutes'' interview, Mr. Thielmann describes watching the February 5, 2003, presentation Secretary Powell made to the United Nations. He says at the time Secretary Powell made that presentation he was nonplused by what Secretary Powell was saying. He says what Powell was saying about a range of things was not at all in concert with the intelligence the State Department had. About the charge that Iraq was importing aluminum tubes to use in a program to build nuclear weapons-- he said: This is one of the most disturbing parts of Secretary Powell's speech for us. He is talking now of those who were part of the intelligence- gathering part of the State Department. Intelligence agents intercepted the tubes in 2001, and the CIA said they were parts for a centrifuge to enrich uranium--fuel for an atom bomb. But they got information from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory-- those are the scientists who enrich uranium for our bombs, our nuclear weapons--and the experts there advised that the tubes were all wrong for a bomb program and the aluminum, apparently, it turns out, after further inspection, was exactly what the Iraqis wanted for artillery. So they sent the word up to Secretary Powell this is not about nuclear weapons, it is about artillery, and the fellow who is at the Oak Ridge Laboratory, Houston Wood, said: I guess I was angry, that's the best way to describe my emotions. I was angry at that. Mr. Thielmann was talking now about Secretary Powell's speech to the United Nations. He said he found that the tubes could not be what the CIA thought they were. They were too heavy, three times too thick, and certain to leak. The transcript says: ``Wasn't going to work. They would have failed,'' says Wood. . . . And they reached that conclusion in 2001. They reported to Secretary Powell's office that they were confident the tubes were not for a nuclear program. And then nothing happened. About a year later, when the administration was building the case for the war, the tubes were resurrected on the front page of the New York Times. And Mr. Wood says: I thought when I read that there must be some other tubes that people were talking about. I just was flabbergasted that people were still pushing that those might be centrifuges. The New York Times reported that senior administration officials insisted the tubes were for an atom bomb program. Again, Mr. Wood, the expert from Oak Ridge Laboratories, says: Science was not pushing this forward. Scientists had made their determination, their evaluation, and now we didn't know what was happening. The scientists had already said this cannot be for the development of nuclear weapons. So in his United Nations speech, Secretary Powell acknowledged there was a disagreement about the aluminum tubes, but he said most experts agreed with the nuclear theory. Mr. Powell said: There is controversy about what these tubes are for. Most U.S. experts think they are intended to serve as rotors in centrifuges used to enrich uranium. Most of the experts--nearly all of the experts--are at Oak Ridge. And Mr. Houston Wood, at Oak Ridge, claims he does not know anyone in academia or a foreign government who would disagree with his appraisal. He said: I don't know a single person anywhere who believed that these aluminum tubes were for a nuclear program. Now, I do not understand this. It appears to me that information was available that would have debunked several key portions. I have not talked about the alleged yellowcake purchase from Niger, which was in the President's State of the Union Address, which turned out to have been wrong, or the UAVs, the most sensitive of information, which turned out to be wrong. Mr. Thielmann, who was, again, the top official at the State Department for the gathering of intelligence for presentation to Secretary Powell, talked about some of the slides Secretary Powell was using. He talked about the stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons. He said part of the stockpile was clearly in these bunkers. He was showing slides: The four that are in red squares represent active chemical munitions bunkers. How do I know that, how can I say that? Let me give you a closer look. Up close, Powell said you could see a truck for cleaning up chemical spills. It is a signature for a chemical bunker. Quote: It's a decontamination vehicle in case something goes wrong. But again, Mr. Thielmann, who is the top intelligence person who is providing information to Powell, said: My understanding is that these particular vehicles were simply fire trucks. You cannot really describe [that] as being a unique signature. In fact, it is interesting, when the weapons inspectors showed up over there, that is what they discovered, it was firetrucks. And in other circumstances, that which was part of the slides shown, they were trucks with cobwebs in them and had not been used for a long while. There was no evidence of weapons of mass destruction. So this is a ``60 Minutes'' presentation from the last evening, in which a top intelligence person, with all the clearances, having seen all the intelligence, says Secretary Powell, and others, would have had the intelligence to deal with these questions easily. This debate is not about pulling Saddam Hussein out of a rat hole. Saddam Hussein was more than a rat. Saddam Hussein was an evil man who killed thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands. It is the case our country has opened mass graves the size of football fields, and those graves contain the skeletons of thousands and thousands and thousands of Iraqis. The world is much better off because Saddam Hussein has been apprehended and no longer runs the country of Iraq. But the question for this country--and it is an important question-- is, when the call is made the next time--perhaps an hour from now, perhaps a month from now--to have our intelligence community make an accurate assessment, will they make an assessment that is accurate? Will they fail us? Will they fail the President? Will they fail our country? This is a very significant issue. Mr. Tenet's speech today was not only defensive, but Mr. Tenet's speech failed, in my judgment, to acknowledge what the country has widely acknowledged, starting with David Kay and others, that the intelligence failed us with respect to Iraq. And that bothers me a great deal. Now, I know there will be people who come to the floor of the Senate, and they will say none of this really matters. Saddam Hussein was a bad guy. He was; no question about that. But if you say that good intelligence does not matter, then don't sleep very well tonight because terrorists want to commit terrorist acts in this country. Terrorists want to kill people in this country. The only way we are going to make certain we protect this country is through good, strong intelligence. I worry a great deal about an intelligence community that does not seem to be accountable, does not get it right, and no one cares. The President ought to be furious about what is happening. The Congress ought to be apoplectic about what is happening. Both should demand on an urgent basis a complete, thorough review of what went wrong and how to fix it--not tomorrow, not yesterday, but right now. I don't see that urgency at all. What I see is the President finally getting pushed and nudged the last couple days, saying: I will put together an independent commission that can investigate intelligence, only under pressure. Then we have people who come to the floor and say: There is no problem here. Saddam Hussein was a bad guy found in a rat hole. It is better that he is in jail. Every single one of us--Republicans, Democrats, the White House, and the Congress, and especially the American people--must rely on a strong system of intelligence that gets it right to protect this country's long-term security. To the extent that, as David Kay indicated, it failed and to the extent that, as so many others have testified, circumstance after circumstance that was alleged was not accurate, and to the extent now that Mr. Tenet continues today to seem to believe all was well and all those who are critical are somehow just plain wrong, America is weakened for that. We will strengthen ourselves when we understand we must rely on good intelligence. And if we have not received good intelligence, we must fix that system now. It must be done posthaste. It must be job one. There is an urgency for us to take action now to make certain the next intelligence assessment, perhaps an hour from now, to try to protect this country will be an assessment that is accurate and one upon which we can rely.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, my colleague's admonition in using care in discussing this issue is admirable. Care is exactly what we ought to use when we evaluate what has happened and not happened. My colleague, incidentally, has just made the point that there was intelligence that suggested that Iraq posed a threat. And that was exactly my point. That is exactly the intelligence that was represented to this body and to the House and to the American people. But it turns out the intelligence, the specific intelligence, that was presented was wrong. My colleague also, at the start of his presentation, defied anyone to show him a quote from Mr. Kay that said he was wrong or we were wrong. I will do that. My colleague will likely want to then revise his remarks. My hope is he might do that. Here is the front cover of Newsweek this week. Mr. David Kay--and this is in quotes--says: We were all wrong. I will go to the inside on page 27, again a direct quote of Mr. Kay: It turns out we were all wrong probably in my judgment. This is testimony before the Armed Services Committee. On a third point, in the fourth paragraph of his prepared testimony given before the Armed Services Committee, quoting David Kay: Let me begin by saying we were almost all wrong. My colleague challenged someone to come up with a quote. There are three of them, and my hope is the record might at least stand on direct quotes that are presented here before a committee of the Senate. If one dare whisper these days--just whisper--about these issues, it is perceived as a frontal assault against the President of the United States. That is sheer, utter nonsense. The question before this body and this country, in my judgment, is if the top weapons inspector appointed by this President goes to Iraq and comes back to us and says that body of intelligence that was given us, given our country, given our Congress before we went into Iraq was all wrong, we have an obligation to address that issue, not later, but now. We have an obligation not to try to protect someone in the administration or in Congress. We have an obligation to protect the American people not later, but now. I am not on the Intelligence Committee. I have deep admiration for all who do serve, Republicans and Democrats. But I would hope, just as one Member of the Senate, that the most significant energy in this body to follow where this string leads and try to determine what is wrong, what happened, what persuades Mr. Kay to come and say, ``It turns out we were all wrong,'' I would expect my colleagues on the Intelligence Committee, without respect of politics, just to follow that string to find out what on Earth happened and how do we fix it immediately. To suggest that somehow that we ought not worry about this, that invading Iraq was fine because Saddam Hussein was an evil man, just changes the subject. Sure he was an evil man. We found him in a rathole. He was a rat in a rathole. He is a killer, a murderer. The world is better off because he doesn't lead Iraq. That is not the question. The question is what trust, what confidence do we have in this country's system of intelligence today? Our intelligence system needs to pore over information about chatter, about satellite photos, about raw intelligence to determine who might be planning an attack tonight on an American city, who might be designing right now to kill Americans. I want that intelligence community to get it right. I want it to be the finest intelligence community in the world. I am sorry that I say Mr. Tenet is defensive. I am sorry to have to say that I think he got it wrong. But David Kay says it and others say it. All of us in this Chamber depend on our intelligence community. We spend a great deal of money on it. I want the finest we can possibly have protecting this country. If anyone believes our intelligence community got it all right, did just fine, then they ought to sleep like a baby--go to sleep early and sleep late and have a great night's sleep. But if they believe, as Mr. Kay does--and, yes, that is what he believes. I have quoted three different occasions where he said we got it wrong, and if someone believes, as many respected foreign policy thinkers and intelligence thinkers do believe, that there is something wrong, something significantly wrong that we need to address, then we ought to join together, Republicans and Democrats, and not worry about who might be criticized, just decide we are going to fix it. That is our job. It is not our job to protect the Senate, to protect the President. It is our job to protect this country. I worry a great deal about what is going on. My colleague went far afield and made a defense of the Iraq resolution. Well, a good many of us in the Senate and in the Congress voted for that resolution. Now we discover Mr. Kay suggests the intelligence got it all wrong, the basis for that resolution got it all wrong.

Mr. DORGAN. With due respect, and I have great affection for my colleague from Arizona, he has it wrong. Let me read from the fourth paragraph of Mr. Kay's testimony given to the Senate Armed Services Committee: ``Let me begin by saying we were almost all wrong.'' Now, this is not about parsing words. It is Mr. Kay saying: Look, the intelligence was wrong. I say to my colleague from Arizona, my point is not about the President, it is not about the Vice President, it is not about Condoleezza Rice or Secretary Powell or Mr. Tenet. It is about whether this country is well served by the current intelligence community. Do they have it right or not? If they got it wrong, as many suggest they have, and it is pretty hard to make the case they got it right, then what do we do about it?

Mr. DORGAN. I would be happy to yield for one question and then another.

Mr. DORGAN. Well, I do not have a gauge on the tank. In fact, I barely came to the Senate expecting to speak for 5 minutes and then the Senator from Arizona piqued my interest and I decided I had to go find some quotes and respond to his presentation. I know the Senator from Maine has been here awhile, and I will not be much longer.

Mr. DORGAN. I would be happy to yield.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I am aware of that. I might say I have high hopes that that study, which has been underway for some long while, will be helpful to us. I must say also that there is a portion of the study that is a black hole. The study that is going on up there and will be released deals only with the gathering of intelligence, which I think shortchanges this Senate and the American people, because it does not deal with the use of that intelligence. But we can deal with the issue of the use of intelligence at another time. I wish it had been done in the same report. Again, this issue of intelligence is critical to this country's protection and security interests. I believe that is something on which we would agree. We share that understanding, and my hope is that up in 407--the Senator from Missouri refers to a room in the Capitol Building that is a room where the Intelligence Committee meets. It is a room where top secret briefings are given. One of the things that persuaded me to come to the floor this afternoon is I have sat in that room. I have sat in that room with a neon sign that says ``top secret'' up on top flashing, and I have had the very people who developed this intelligence assessment look me in the eye and give me information that I now know to be wrong. That bothers me a lot. I do not know how that happened. I do not know whether it was just bad collection of data, bad interpretation of data, or misuse of data. I do not have the foggiest idea, but I am saying this, that as one Senator I have been sitting in that room, I have asked direct questions, and I have had people look me in the eye and give me an answer that I now know to be wrong. I think most Senators who have had that experience are concerned about it. I say to the Senator from Missouri, because I do not know whether he heard me say it, I have great admiration for those who serve on the Intelligence Committee. I do not serve there. I do not profess to be an expert in intelligence or foreign policy, but all of us have an obligation to be as informed as possible about all of these issues. I expect the most aggressive Members of this Senate, following the trail of where this leads, to be those who serve on the Intelligence Committee. If Mr. Kay truly believes we got it all wrong, quote, unquote, then I would expect the Intelligence Committee to lead the way in finding out why that happened and how we get to a point where we never have that assessment again when it comes to this country's vital national interests. Again, my colleague from Maine has been patient and I would not have spoken at this length except that I was intrigued and interested by my colleague from Arizona. So I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I have described the amendment in some detail. I say to my colleague from Oklahoma I would be happy if he would like to have the amendment approved now. But, if not, if there are some issues with respect to language or some discussions we should have with you and your staff about the breadth of this, I would be happy to do that as well. This bill will be on the floor for a number of days. I am only anxious to make certain we dispose of this and approve it before we complete this bill. My attempt is, of course, to cooperate with those who are managing the bill.

Mr. DORGAN. I have no objection to it being set aside when others wish to offer amendments. I appreciate the cooperation of the Senator from Oklahoma and the Senator from Vermont.

Mr. DORGAN. What is the objection to? There is no unanimous consent request.

Mr. DORGAN. I don't believe there was a unanimous consent request.

Mr. DORGAN. So there can be no objection to a unanimous consent request never made.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, prior to the vote I indicated I had an amendment. I want to begin the discussion very briefly of the amendment. The amendment is one I have worked on for some while. It deals with a relatively small issue with respect to the context of this bill, but a rather large issue for family farmers. Let me describe what it is. There was a justifiable effort to address issues dealing with homeland security by the Department of Transportation. They issued regulations that would regulate the shipment and transport of hazardous material in commerce in amounts that require the shipment to be placarded and also to implement security plans for that shipment. The difficulty and the problem is this. The way the Department of Transportation developed this rule, the rule will apply to family farmers, for example, who have a 120-gallon fuel service tank in the back of their pickup truck. Those farmers are not going to have a security plan for that pickup truck and for that service tank. It is perfectly logical to want to regulate for safety purposes the shipment of hazardous materials. Let me give you an example of where this goes when the definitions are not carefully crafted. I was a senior in high school when myself and two of my best friends decided to go to the Black Hills of South Dakota for a weekend. It was a pretty big deal for us. We took a pickup truck and we had a 120-gallon service tank full of gasoline. We had a few dollars, and we bought 120 gallons of gasoline and a relatively new pickup, for three seniors in high school. We were prepared to have a pretty good time. If that happened today, we would under the current rules be required to have a security plan in place prior to taking our pickup truck and 120 gallons of regular gasoline on our trip to the Black Hills of South Dakota. Three high school seniors are not going to have a security plan to get enough gasoline to go to the Black Hills and have a good time. Why would we need a security plan? Because anything over 110 gallons of fuel, propane, chemicals, or hazardous materials will be required to have a security plan. Forget about three seniors who went to the Black Hills. How about a farmer who has that 120-gallon service tank in the back of his pickup truck who stops at a local cafe and goes in to buy a cheeseburger? He is in violation of this rule by the Department of Transportation unless he can physically see his pickup truck through the window because he will be required to have a ``security plan'' and have a placard. Again, when I was a young boy, my dad sent me to Dickinson, ND to get 5 or 6 30-gallon drums of spray pesticides and herbicides. It is done all the time. That would, of course, violate the rule these days unless I had a security plan for my trip to Dickinson to pick up 4 or 5 30- gallon drums of chemicals to spray on the crops in the field near Regent, ND. That is what this rule now would provide. It is a bad rule. It does not mean, in my judgment, to include family farmers. It doesn't mean to put them in handcuffs with respect to the way they handle chemicals and propane and gasoline. But in fact it does. I don't want farmers to be in violation of the rule or in violation of the law. I don't think the Department of Transportation or the Congress, in implementing this rule, anticipated this kind of burden with respect to family farms. In fact, the University of Illinois Extension Service put out an extension agriculture update. Let me describe what it says. It states the rule by DOT says persons, including farmers, who ship or transport hazardous materials in commerce in amounts that require the shipment to be placarded, must develop and implement security plans by September 25, 2003. Examples of materials to which the security plan apply include explosives such as dynamite, detonators, pesticides, fertilizer, hydrous ammonia, ammonia nitrate, and fuels such as gasoline and propane. If you ship or transport fertilizers, pesticides, gasoline, propane and packages or containers that are larger than 119 gallons, or the total quantity you ship or transport at any one time is more than 1,000 pounds, then you must have a security plan. If you are a supplier who delivers the pesticides, fertilizers, and fuels you use to your farm, then you don't need that security plan. And if you only transport fertilizers, pesticides, and fuels between the fields of your farm, then you don't need to have a security plan. But if you drive to town to get the chemicals, fertilizers, or fuel, then you have to have a security plan. Incidentally, the text I have just read from is part of a U.S. Department of Transportation fact sheet, and it was entitled ``Hazardous Materials Transportation Security Requirements, Applicability to Farmers and Farming Operations.'' That was available from the Department of Transportation's Web site earlier this fall. But it now has been removed. It is gone. You now can't find it. If you ask where did this come from, what happened to it, why is it gone, I don't have the foggiest idea. All I know is what it said, and it doesn't say it anymore. Now we are told the Department of Transportation is putting this security plan on hold despite the fact it is the rule, and they are now beginning to discuss the issue with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. They are discussing it with State departments of transportation, and the American Farm Bureau. That is also in the piece of information from the University of Illinois Extension Service. First of all, when the Department of Transportation does a rule, you would expect they would do it right side up. You do the consultation first. Then you develop the rule having knowledge of how people react to it and what their notion is of how it should work and how it would apply. In this case, apparently they wrote a rule dealing with hazardous material transportation, including basic fuels and chemicals, and now are beginning to consult with others about how this would impact family farmers. I am offering an amendment that clarifies using the definition of family farmers in the farm bill, and that this does not apply to family farmers in the routine business of family farming. Somebody with a pickup truck and a service tank in the back full of gasoline that is moving around is not going to have to have a security plan to do that. Someone who is hauling a few 30-gallon drums of chemicals from the shop in town out to their farm doesn't need a security plan to do that. If we are going to have every family farm developing security plans, who is going to enforce that? Who is going to inspect it? Who is going to determine whether it meets DOT inspections and requirements and specifications? I just think this is a circumstance where it is a template that is put over everything that doesn't fit at all for family farmers. Family farmers do a pretty good job out on the farm. They work hard and try hard. They are the Americans who live with hope. They put a seed in the ground and they hope. They hope it rains, they hope it grows, they hope it doesn't hail, and they hope the insects don't come. They hope they don't get drought or too much moisture, and they hope, finally, if they are able to get it harvested they can haul it to the elevator and get a decent price. They don't ask for a lot. They certainly ask us to stay out of their way with respect to rules and regulations that don't make basic common sense and that do not meet the test of common sense. This attempt by the Department of Transportation, laudable as it might be, to try to require the development of security plans for the movement of large quantities of hazardous material--certainly dynamite, detonators, and so on, I understand that. But when you talk about gasoline and farm chemicals, we must understand there is a difference between substantial movement from commercial operators and the ordinary transportation of farm chemicals and farm fuel by family farmers around this country. For that reason, I have offered an amendment that I hope will meet the test of changing this regulation in a manner that represents some basic common sense and relieve the burden from family farmers. As a matter of fact, family farmers are not complying with this. They really effectively cannot comply with it. The Department of Transportation has indicated to some that they would probably not enforce it. You have the Agriculture Extension Service telling farmers, here is what you have to do to comply with the rule that is virtually unenforceable and really doesn't make any sense. When we see things here that do not meet a test of common sense, what we ought to do is legislate and change it. That is what I propose to do with respect to the hazardous materials transportation requirements. Let me again say I believe there is a requirement for us to be concerned about the movement of hazardous materials in our country. I fully support the Department of Transportation. They have a difficult and vexing job to try to respond to all of these things. But this particular rule does not meet the requirements, and does not meet the test of common sense dealing with family farmers. I have not yet offered the amendment. I would like to send the amendment to the desk.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Reserving the right to object, if I might be recognized following the vote to offer the amendment, that is fine. You may want to work on this amendment some. It is not an amendment of great moment except to family farmers who are concerned about this. I would like to be able to offer the amendment. I have been down in the capital office hearing the Senator talk about the need for people to come up and offer amendments. This is a germane amendment. I would love to offer it and be able to debate it. In any event, if we go ahead with this vote, which is fine with me, if I could be recognized following this vote to offer my amendment, I would very much appreciate that. I would ask the Senator from Missouri whether I might be recognized following the vote.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, reserving the right to object--and I will not object--if you want Members to come to the floor with germane amendments, I am here. I have been hearing that a lot today. I have one and it is not a big amendment. What I hear being said at the moment is perhaps you want to go through this bill by title, which is something I have not heard before. It should be open to amendment at any point. That is the reason that, for the last hour or so, I put this amendment together. My hope is that the Senator from Missouri and those managing will understand, when we are ready to offer an amendment, you ought to welcome it. I hope when I seek recognition, you will allow me to offer it. I expect to speak 8 or 10 minutes. If you want to lay it aside then and work on it, I am happy to do that. I shall not object.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, actually my intention was to speak in favor of the highway bill and compliment our colleagues for the construction of this legislation, but I did also want to comment on several other issues. I will be relatively brief. If others present themselves to the Senate who wish to speak at length on the highway bill, I will accommodate that. At a time when our economy has had a pretty tough time, the one certain way to produce jobs is through a highway bill. This is the kind of legislation that invests in the infrastructure of our country, and we know exactly its consequences. It produces jobs and it produces them very quickly all across this country. The construction and the maintenance of roads and bridges and the basic investment in infrastructure in this country is a certain way not only to expand the economy but to expand our job base. In recent years, we have had a slowdown in the economy. Now we see what is called a ``recovery,'' but the recovery does not include a recovery of U.S. jobs. That is a major deficiency and a serious problem. I believe the legislation brought to the Senate today that will be debated for some while dealing with a new highway bill is important legislation for this country. At a time when we have record budget deficits, if we were really producing an accounting system that worked the way it should work, most Members of the Senate would recognize this bill is funded by money that is put in a trust fund. When people drive up to the gas pumps and fill their tank, they are paying an excise tax. There is a specific purpose for this excise tax, and that is to improve the roads, bridges, and infrastructure of the country. It is important to understand we raised the money for this, by and large, through an excise tax. I know there is debate about formulas and other issues, but, in my judgment, Senator Inhofe and Senator Jeffords have done extraordinary work in bringing this bill to the Senate. I like the bill and intend to support the basic construct of what they have done. While I mention this bill is largely paid for with excise taxes, the tax on gasoline and other similar excise taxes--when you fill up your tank you are paying a tax and expect that to be invested in America's roads and infrastructure--we have in the rest of Government, in a budget released yesterday by the President, serious deficiencies. The President's Budget Let me mention in the construct of discussing various spending issues, the budget released yesterday is a roadmap and a series of choices by the President. I heard the President say last week before he released this budget that, with respect to Federal budget deficits, he needed action by Congress. It is important to note that the budget deficit requested by the President in his own submission yesterday was the largest deficit in this country's history of budgets submitted by Presidents. This fiscal year, we are now told by the President and by his own budget in this fiscal year, the budget deficit will be over $520 billion. That, clearly, is a failure of fiscal policy and a failure of choices. I have said repeatedly the President's construct of fiscal policy just does not add up. I come from a small town and a small school, but mathematics works the say same way in a small school or big school as in a big town or a small town: Two and two equals four. In budgets where we talk about trillions, two and two still equals four. We cannot increase defense spending substantially, increase spending on homeland security substantially, cut taxes again and again and again, and tell the American people it will all work out; that we will just grow sufficiently; and it will all be just fine. It is not all just fine. In the middle of all of this we ran into a recession, an attack against this country on 9/11, the requirement to wage a war against terrorism. But then at the same time the President is saying, let's increase spending and let's cut our revenue. The slowest member of my high school class would have understood where that ends up. It ends up in the largest deficits in history. The $520-plus billion deficit is, actually, by the way, a faulty number as well because that is taking all the Social Security trust funds and using them to show that number. The Social Security trust funds also belong over here. They are required to pay for Social Security benefits in the future and they are being saved for that purpose, and we ought not include them in this operating budget. For that reason, the current budget deficit is somewhere around $660 billion this year. That is the amount of money that our children and their children will be obligated to pay in the future. There is an urgency and a seriousness that I don't see represented in the budget the President sent to us yesterday. In his budget, he proposes a very large Federal budget deficit. But his budget also says, I will request zero spending for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. At the moment, we know we spend $5 billion a month for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, a little over $1.25 billion a week. Five billion a month is $60 billion a year. And what does the President say it will cost in this budget? Zero. So this budget is not an honest reflection of what he is going to spend, either. Frankly, I don't understand that. I don't understand why a budget comes with no plan to fix the serious and urgent problems and, in fact, will miss the mark on what we will actually spend by well over $200 to $300 billion. Last year at this time the President said he thought the Federal budget deficit for the year we are in would be $307 billion. Well, it is not. It is well over $200 billion more than that 1 year later. My point is, this is off the track and out of kilter. It needs leadership from the President and the Congress to fix it. It starts with the first step, which is a budget document that honestly reflects what is going to happen to the best of our ability. The budget document sent to us, regrettably, is a political budget, not a budget document. We need to do better than that. On the issue of spending, I also want to discuss the February 2, Wall Street Journal article, page 1, ``Halliburton Hits Snafu in Billing on Kuwait.'' It says that as a contractor for the Federal Government, where the taxpayers pay the bill, Halliburton, was billing the taxpayers for 42,042 meals every day but they were only serving 14,000 meals a day. What is it called? A ``snafu.'' They are overbilling us by $16 million and it is called a snafu. I am sorry, not in my hometown. This is either the sloppiest accounting in the world by a contractor that should not be doing the work or it is cheating. One or the other. It is not a snafu. The fact is, we are throwing money at these problems. We are contracting with companies without bids, and the result is the American people are being overcharged. This, too, is contributing to overspending and an increase in Federal budget deficits. Let me make one more point about overspending and budgets. The one area in which the President recommended an increase in funding--I was surprised, as I was looking through the small details, cuts in funding and things that affect Indian children's health, for example, or Indian children's education--the one area where the President recommended some increased funding was in the wild horses and burros program. He actually put a few million extra in that program. I was looking at that. We have 39,000 wild horses and burros, and I like horses--by the way, I grew up raising horses--39,000 wild horses and burros. Do you know how much the program costs to maintain wild horses and burros? Forty-one million dollars requested by the President. That is over $1,000 per horse or burro. They could have their own apartment in my hometown for that. I don't understand. This is all about choices and priorities. I just pulled one little issue where increased spending exists, wild horses and burros. The Food and Drug Administration and the Cost of Prescription Drugs Mr. President, let me finally make a point about something that was announced in the last 2 days by the Food and Drug Administration. While this does not relate to the Federal budget, it relates to the budget of every American dealing with the cost of the price of prescription drugs. The Food and Drug Administration campaign to warn against Canadian drugs. It says: ``Next week the FDA will begin a campaign saying it is dangerous to import drugs from Canada.'' I am sorry, this is the Food and Drug Administration which is supposed to be a regulatory agency. It is supposed to regulate, not represent, the pharmaceutical industry. Yet here we have the FDA doing all it can to try to tell the American people that importing prescription drugs from Canada is unsafe. It is total nonsense. The Canadians have the same chain of custody as we do. The same pill, put in the same bottle, made by the same company, is sent to a pharmacy in Winnipeg and is sent to a pharmacy in Pembina, ND. The pills are not different because they are identical, both FDA approved; the difference is price. And often the American is paying double, triple, or 10 times the price that is charged in Canada. We pay the highest prices in the world, and it is unfair. Those of us who are developing plans by which we would have our pharmacists or our consumers access the identical prescription drug for a much lower price from Canada are now confronting the FDA, which seems to be working full time for the pharmaceutical industry. I wish Mr. McClellan would take a look at his job description because there is not any way on Earth he can describe a system in which--for example, in the one I propose, North Dakota pharmacists, in a pilot project, buying from licensed pharmacists in Canada FDA-approved drugs--there is not any way the FDA can credibly suggest there is a safety issue. There is no way they can credibly suggest that. Now, they may try, but if they do, they are not being honest with the American people. The 9/11 Commission and an Independent Commission to Evaluate Intelligence with Regard to Iraq Finally--I know my colleagues are waiting to speak--I want to mention two things about commissions. The 9/11 commission is now meeting. It has a May deadline. That needs to be extended. It has had to issue subpoenas to this administration to get information from the administration about events prior to 9/11. What on Earth could people in the administration be thinking about requiring the issuance of subpoenas to get them to cooperate? Besides the issue of subpoenas, they still have not gotten adequate cooperation from the White House for interviews and information they want. I believe the time for the commission ought to be extended. I also believe the administration ought to comply fully with all the requests for information immediately. I do not, for the life of me, understand why an independent commission investigating 9/11 and the information that led up to it should have any problem getting any information from anyone in this Government. It makes no sense to me. And finally, the issue of an independent commission to evaluate the intelligence with respect to Iraq. Mr. Kay, the former chief weapons inspector, says our intelligence community failed, failed the President. He should have said failed the Senate, failed the Congress, failed the American people. What happened? The President is suggesting an independent commission that he appoints. I do not support that. I do not think the executive branch should or could investigate itself, even with a commission they determined independent, especially when they select the commission. There should be an independent commission as a matter of Federal law, and this Congress ought to pass legislation that authorizes it and funds it. And we ought to do so soon. The safety and security of this country depends on good intelligence. We are told by Mr. Kay that the intelligence community has failed this country. We need to urgently get to the bottom of it. Mr. President, I will have more to say later. The Senate, I believe, is on an abbreviated schedule today for a number of reasons. I know my colleague, Senator Kennedy, wishes to speak, so I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. I inquire if the gathering of intelligence is so critical--and the Newsweek magazine describes it as a failure in the description by Mr. Kay, the top weapons inspector--if, in fact, it is a failure, then I would expect that the President of the United States, the Congress, and the American people would demand, on an urgent basis, that we figure out what happened, what is wrong, and how to fix it. Not later, now. The safety and security of this country depends on it. With respect to the issue of intelligence, we ought to now understand, having the vision in the rearview mirror, the issue is not what we think but, rather, what we know when a country changes a doctrine, as the President did, with respect to preemptive attacks. If you talk about preemption you better know things rather than think things. I went back and reread the presentation to the United Nations by the Secretary of State. When he made that presentation, I thought to myself, that is a masterful presentation. And what he did, interestingly enough, is say: We know the following; we know the following; we know. And he put pictures up and he put up pieces of information--we know this from human resources; we know this from inspections; we know this from satellite photos. They did not know it. What he said we knew turns out to have been fundamentally wrong. So it seems to me the President, the Congress, and the American people ought to demand on an urgent basis there be an independent commission to find out what on Earth happened and how do we fix it. Let me make one final point, if I might. Can there really be an independent commission, when a President, who did not want a commission in the first place, and said in recent weeks he did not want a commission, now will say our executive branch and our administration will create a commission that is independent? Can that really be a commission? Or is it not the case that a truly independent commission would be one that follows the course that we usually follow on urgent issues, and that is, we put in law, a law from Congress, that creates and funds a commission and creates a truly independent body to take a hard look at what happened. The executive branch cannot possibly have a commission that investigates itself. This is not about politics. There is no political way to talk about safety and security of the American people and our great reliance on intelligence. This is not about Republicans or Democrats. This is about the future of this country and getting it right. It is critically important. The Senator from New Jersey and what he has been talking about for months about this independent commission is right on the mark, as is the Senator from Illinois. I am pleased to join him in this discussion about how important intelligence really is. I ask that 10 minutes be added to the Senator's allocation for his presentation.

Mr. DORGAN. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. DORGAN. I ask the Senator from Illinois if it is not the case that the gathering of intelligence--today, tonight, tomorrow morning, yesterday--might be the very function that determines whether our country is able to determine and prevent a future terrorist attack against our country; isn't the intelligence-gathering system that important?

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I rise today to honor the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association as they celebrate their 50th anniversary. I take great pride in the fact that BEK Communications Cooperative of Steele, ND is among the founding members of NTCA. Forming soon after the Rural Electrification Administration, REA--today known as the Rural Utilities Service--was granted authority to make loans to telephone companies, BEK and its fellow members in the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association, NTCA, have evolved from providing basic multiparty telephone service to offering a full array of advanced telecommunications services. Rural telecommunications carriers owe a debt of gratitude to REA, and those who sought to expand its role. The idea of expanding the scope and authority of the REA, began in the late 1930s when REA Administrator John Carmody wrote: Personally, I have long felt there was a real opportunity for constructive assistance to rural people in the idea of Federal financing of farm telephone lines. It seems to me that the rural people have just as much right to up-to-date communication as they have to modern power. There's no question in my mind but that Government assistance will be required if the job is ever to be completed. This idea remained just an idea until 1944 when Senator Lister Hill, a Democrat from Alabama, introduced legislation calling for the formation of the Rural Telephone Administration, modeled after the REA. Senator Hill was soon joined in his effort to bring telephone service to rural America by, Representative W.R. ``Bob'' Poage, Democrat from Texas, who introduced similar legislation calling for the expansion of the existing REA to make telephone loans. Following 4 years of failed attempts, Congress finally succeeded in passing the telephone amendments to the Rural Electrification Act. On October 28, 1949, President Harry Truman signed the measure into law, which granted the REA the authority to make loans for the extension and improvement of rural telephone service. Soon thereafter, the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, NRECA, created a telephone committee, composed of representatives of newly formed joint electric-telephone cooperative organizations. By 1954, representatives from these co-ops, with the encouragement of NRECA, decided that the time had come to form a separate national organization to represent telephone cooperatives. On June 1, 1954, eight companies, including my constituent then known as BEK Mutual Aid Corporation, along with: Buggs Island Telephone Cooperative, Chase City, VA; Mark Twain Rural Telephone Company, Bethel, MO; Mid-Rivers Telephone Cooperative, Inc. Circle, MT; Pineland Telephone Cooperative, Inc. Metter, GA; Winnebago Cooperative Telephone Association, Lake Mills, IA, Twin Lakes Telephone Cooperative Gainesboro, TN, and North Central Telephone Cooperative Lafayette, TN formed the National Telephone Cooperative Association, which was later renamed the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association. BEK, whose name was formed by the initials of Burleigh, Emmons, and Kidder counties, was incorporated in 1952, and was one of the first recipients of telephone loans from the REA. In fact, the company received its first REA loan for $371,000 in April 1952 to purchase and upgrade its Hazleton, ND exchange. In 1954, REA approved a second loan for $1,499,000. This funding enabled BEK to expand their service territory with the purchase of several independent telephone companies and to begin the process of establishing modern dial exchanges. The Hazleton exchange became the first to be cut over to modern dial service on March 3, 1956. BEK continued to grow and prosper throughout the 1950's and 1960's. In April 1967, a third REA loan enabled BEK to begin upgrading its system to one party service. By June 10, 1977, all of BEK's 12 exchanges had been upgraded to one-party service. What began as a dream in the minds of rural residents 50 years ago has evolved into a diverse, state-of-the art telecommunications company serving 6,000 members across 5,700 square miles in a six-county area. Today BEK Communications provides many basic and advanced services including: local and long distance telephone service, dial-up and high speed Internet access, using DSL & satellite technologies, advanced intelligent network features, ISDN, dedicated data circuits, voice mail, automated attendant functions, centrex and more. BEK's success and its commitment to providing exemplary telecommunications services to its members is indicative of all the rural telecommunications carriers that make up the membership of the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association. NTCA's membership has expanded from eight members in seven States to 558 members spread across 45 States. These small rural telecommunications systems provide voice services to approximately 3,270,000 subscribers over a combined territory comprising some 40 percent of the geographic United States. On average, NTCA member-companies serve rural areas with a population density averaging between one to five customers per square mile, a sharp contrast from the Bell companies average of 130 customers per square mile. Today, NTCA member-companies on average serve 5,100 subscribers. In addition to their traditional voice offerings, most are also engaged in the provision of some combination of Internet, wireless, long distance, paging, and cable or satellite television services. Through it all, NTCA members have maintained that local touch that can only be found by folks serving their friends and neighbors. With the financial assistance of the Rural Utilities Service, NTCA members remain on the cutting edge of technology by expanding broadband opportunities through such means as fiber-to-the-home projects in communities across this country. NTCA rural telecommunications companies continue to connect the heartland of America to the world. NTCA and its 558 member-companies should be commended for their ever present commitment to rural America. Happy 50th Anniversary, NTCA.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Amendment No. 2236